Many companies seek to capitalize on having a national or international presence by promoting to their customers the advantages of a supplier that can provide a product or service of uniform quality anywhere in the country or the world from its network of locations. A national or international company may also seek to foster an image of increased service and superior research based upon the combined and complementary efforts of groups separated geographically but working together to meet the customer's needs.
One tool that can be effective to portray an international but unified market presence is the adoption of a uniform look for labeling and product literature. While the company that seeks a uniform look has a national or international business, the printing is typically done on a local scale by different small, independent printers. The labels, product brochures, or other printed articles may then have color variations from location to location, or even for different printing runs because of error introduced by subjective color matching methods, by slightly different color standards, by different equipment and different printing conditions, and so on. The colors of printed materials can also vary because they are printed by different processes, for example by a lithographic process or by a gravure printing process. Different kinds of printing inks, for example heat-set inks or drying inks, could also be used, depending upon the particular printer. Such differences in the printed materials detracts from the desired image of a national or global company with a strong, unified effort.
For these reasons, it would be desirable to have a method of assuring the closest match in color and quality, regardless of where geographically the article is printed.